A nucleic acid amplification reaction is a technique for sequentially amplifying a region of nucleic acids (including specific nucleotide sequences, a so-called target site) by repeatedly heating and cooling a sample (including the nucleic acids) to exponentially amplify the nucleic acids including the target site. Nucleic acid amplification reactions are widely used in areas such as biotechnology, genetic engineering, and medical fields. For example, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a technique for exponentially amplifying deoxyribonucleic acids (DNAs) including the specific nucleotide sequences by repeatedly (1) denaturing a sample including double-stranded DNAs by heating the sample to a temperature of about 95° C. to isolate the double-stranded DNAs to single-stranded DNAs; (2) providing forward and reverse oligonucleotide primers, which include sequences complementary to the specific nucleotide sequences about to be amplified, to the sample after denaturing; (3) annealing to form a partial DNA-primer complex binding the primers to the specific nucleotide sequences of the single-stranded DNAs by cooling the primers and the denatured single-stranded DNAs to a temperature of about 55° C. and (4) extension synthesizing double stranded DNAs based on primers of the partial DNA-primer complex by the DNA polymerase (e.g., Tag polymerase) while maintaining a temperature of the sample at about 72° C. after the annealing.
Since a nucleic acid amplification reaction is a procedure preceded or premised in most fields of its application, the nucleic acid amplification reaction needs to be proceeded accurately and rapidly. Therefore, various nucleic acid amplification techniques, which may derive reliable nucleic acid amplification results with a small amount of sample and may reduce reaction time, have recently been introduced. Moreover, nucleic acid amplification devices for easily performing the nucleic acid amplification reaction by controlling various samples and reagents in a single instrument are currently being developed.